I like S-04 in a lot of English styles. It is a champ in terms of working hard and dropping out when done....

A big +1 here on that. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool liquid yeast devotee.That said, S-04 has never disappointed me when doing a last minute, impulsive brew with no time to 'grow up' my preferred house yeast.Ans it's great through multiple repitches as well. I've even repitched S-04 yeast from a barleywine ferment into a mild ale ferment with no issues whatsoever.

I like S-04 in a lot of English styles. It is a champ in terms of working hard and dropping out when done....

A big +1 here on that. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool liquid yeast devotee.That said, S-04 has never disappointed me when doing a last minute, impulsive brew with no time to 'grow up' my preferred house yeast.Ans it's great through multiple repitches as well. I've even repitched S-04 yeast from a barleywine ferment into a mild ale ferment with no issues whatsoever.

I used to pretty much exclusively use liquid yeast as well. Been switching back to dried yeast for the past couple of years. My access to viable liquid yeast is somewhat questionable where I live. I used to have quite a collection of cultures but I started finding it too time consuming to keep up with culture maintenance and getting my cultures started ahead of time. I'd like to get my culture ranch started again at some point and get culture samples into the deep freeze so I don't have to worry about reculturing them, etc. Next time I take a trip down to the States (I'm in Alaska) I might have to pick up a couple of fresh cultures to bring back with me. For now I've been enjoying how easy dried yeast has been.

I've never used S-04, but I bought some recently with the intention of doing a comparison.

I don't get "bready" from Nottingham. I do find it to have more esters than you might expect as it is usually described as a "neutral" fermenter. Mostly, for me, that's been expressed as a tartness on the finish. I'll get a similar tartness from some commerical English ales, but not as pronounced.

My hope is that I'll like S-04 and use it instead of Nottingham. I've been disappointed with most of my lower gravity beers that used Nottingham but it seems to be a champ on the bigger beers. And I don't get the tartness. Maybe it ages out?

Well I ended up going with S-04. I ended up pitching 3 packs into my wort with an OG of 1.100 (a couple of the packs were old so I wanted to make sure I had good viable yeast). Took it from 1.100 to 1.018 in 7 days! Tasting a little hot right now but I imagine that will mellow with age. Tastes like good barleywine underneath the alcohol heat.

Well I ended up going with S-04. I ended up pitching 3 packs into my wort with an OG of 1.100 (a couple of the packs were old so I wanted to make sure I had good viable yeast). Took it from 1.100 to 1.018 in 7 days! Tasting a little hot right now but I imagine that will mellow with age. Tastes like good barleywine underneath the alcohol heat.

The aging will definitely be beneficial... I usually let my Barleywines age for at least a year before enjoying it and I brew it regularly so I always have some with proper age on it. For me (and as per tradition) the aging step is key if you're going for a true, traditional English Barleywine/Old Ale (which historically are of course essentially the same thing)

What Joe Sr. said. The S-04 stays bready, the tartness from Nottingham doesn't seem so pronounced in a big beer. A barley wine has a little sweetness from all that malt that masks the tartness, I think.

I used to use Nottingham in cream ales, where that tartness wasn't too bad. That S-04 bready flavor....I just never cared for it.